Strategy
Startup & Scaleup Services
From first pitch to scaleup and beyond, one network of senior consultants who have actually built and grown companies works alongside you – bringing in exactly the expertise you need, exactly when you need it
Growing a Business Is Not a Straight Line
A growing business does not follow a straight line. Growth is wiggly. It comes in waves, often on the back of opportunity but frequently accompanied by pressures and stress.
Those pressures can turn into problems, easily ignored in the moment. But they scale too – as the expanding business outgrows infrastructure, processes and people – making the line ever more wiggly. Our Startup & Scaleup suite lets you anticipate and manage your growth, and the opportunities it brings. We help you straighten out and steepen that line.
Instead of a single service or a fixed programme, you get access to a network of over 220 senior consultants across 26 countries who have themselves built, scaled and exited businesses.
Take the
expertise you need, at the time your business needs it – from investment strategy, marketing, and pitch decks, to go-to-market planning, digital infrastructure, AI, cyber security, fractional resources, and recruitment.
Pick What Your Business Needs Now
Every startup needs a different package. Pick the services that match where you are today – our team assembles them into one engagement, and you add more as you grow.
Ready to Scale?
Our senior experts bring real experience from inside high-growth technology businesses, turning complex innovation into a pitch and GTM strategy that investors will notice.
We give practical, campaign-ready support – from positioning and brand development to media relations and investor materials – helping you build momentum at every stage of the startup and scaleup journey.
All Services
Our team of experts has decades of experience providing support to a range of startups and scaleups.
We are agile in how we operate and can also work on a project basis depending on your needs. Once we understand your goals, we’ll recommend the best approach for you.
Strategy
Every scaleup reaches a point where instinct alone is not enough. We help founders and leadership teams sharpen the business model, test assumptions, and build a growth strategy that stands up to scrutiny from investors and boards. Advice comes from consultants who have built and scaled businesses themselves, not just advised on them.
Marketing
Cutting through the noise matters throughout the startup and scaleup journey. We close skills gaps, act as an outsourced marketing function, or work as a fractional chief marketing officer, sharpening a pitch for funding or running campaigns that build awareness and drive growth.
Digital Infrastructure
As a business scales, the infrastructure behind it has to scale too. We help plan and build the connectivity, cloud, and data foundations that support growth – from cloud migration to contact centre and network transformation – before technical debt becomes the thing that holds you back.
Cyber Security
Cyber security is a real risk for any startup or scaleup: 42% of micro, 46% of small, and 65% of medium-sized UK businesses reported a breach recently. We deliver Cyber Essentials accreditation or a virtual Chief Information Security Officer to manage digital risk.
Brand
A startup's brand is often its only chance to make a first impression on investors and customers alike. We build brand positioning that is distinct and consistent – developing the narrative, visual identity, and messaging that hold up as the business grows from pitch deck to public launch and beyond.
People & Culture
Culture is easy to overlook while a business is small, and expensive to fix once it is not. We support leadership development & coaching, organisational design, and the HR foundations that keep a growing team aligned, helping the culture and structure scale with the business rather than against it.
Operations
Growth exposes weak processes fast. We bring structure to day-to-day operations – process design, performance management, and the analytics that turn scattered data into decisions – so the business runs on repeatable systems rather than founder memory as headcount and complexity increase.
Recruitment
Securing the right people often decides whether a scaleup succeeds or stalls. Cambridge Executive Search & Selection, our sister practice, works on a fixed-fee model, not the usual percentage-of-salary charge, for predictable, focused hiring.
AI
Most startups do not lack ideas for AI, they lack the data foundations to make it work. We help build the data strategy, engineering, and governance that AI needs, then support delivery so new models add real value to the business rather than becoming an expensive experiment.
Go to Market
A go-to-market plan has to fit the right audience and the right amount of capital, not just read well on paper. We help define, validate, and execute the plan that channels resources efficiently and positions your product to be heard in a crowded market.
PR
Getting noticed is not the same as being covered by outlets that matter to investors and customers. Our PR and media relations specialists bring real contacts in national and trade press, plus crisis communications support when things go wrong, building the profile a growing business needs to be heard.
Fractional Sales
Not every scaleup is ready to hire a full-time sales leader, but every scaleup needs sales leadership. Our fractional sales resources bring decades of commercial expertise on a part-time, as-needed basis, driving sales performance and client relationships without the cost or commitment of a permanent senior hire.
Funding & Exit
We help founders plan investment strategies suited to each stage of growth, from venture capital to due diligence. Advice comes from consultants who have sat in the same chair.
Pitch Decks
Investors decide fast, often within minutes of an opening slide. We sharpen the narrative, structure, and design of your pitch deck so it captivates rather than confuses, built alongside your wider marketing and messaging so the story you tell investors matches the one you tell customers.
Why Founders Love Working with Us
Advice from people who have done it, not studied it
Senior Executives, Not Career Consultants
Every consultant has held the seat you are sitting in – as a founder, a chief marketing officer, a chief information security officer, or a commercial leader. Advice comes from people who have actually done it.
Pick What You Need, Pay for What You Use
No fixed packages and no long-term contracts. Build a bundle from our full range of services, then add, remove, or scale as your business changes.
#21toWatch Innovation & Acceleration
Since 2018, our #21toWatch awards and acceleration programme has helped hundreds of Cambridge-area startups make their mark, with alumni collectively raising over £710m in funding.
Our Startup & Scaleup Services Are Led by Jeremy Griggs
Senior Partner - Sales & Marketing Transformation
Jeremy Griggs brings 35 years' experience at the intersection of market strategy, technology and go-to-market in telecoms and tech, across start-ups, scale-ups and global corporations. He began his career with BT as a System Sales Engineer, before moving into project management on the creation of BT Italia, which grew to over £1bn in annual revenues. He then led marketing and proposition development at BT's ISP Channel, launching ADSL broadband to UK Internet Service Providers, and joined start-up Affinity Internet as Product Director, turning a £1m monthly loss into profit. Back at BT Global from 2003, Jeremy held senior marketing roles, then led a major transformation programme before setting up an incubator that launched products such as BT Trace and Intelligent Retail. In 2018, he co-founded SaaS and AI start-up now.ai, and has since advised independently on sales, marketing and M&A. Jeremy now leads Sales & Marketing Transformation at Cambridge Management Consulting.
Get in touch with our Team today
Insights
Case Studies
Our team has had the privilege of partnering with a diverse array of clients, from burgeoning startups to FTSE 100
companies. Each case study reflects our commitment to delivering tailored solutions that drive real business results.
A little bit about Cambridge MC
Cambridge Management Consulting is a specialist consultancy drawing on an extensive global network of over 220 senior executives in 26 countries.
Our purpose is to help our clients have a better impact on the world.
